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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta. Ga,
Entered as second-class matter at postoSfce at Atlanta, under act of March *, 187».
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year.
Payable tn advance.
The Steeple, Moving Like
the Hand of a Clock.
r * •?
Think, Study, Use All the Hours That Separate Your Croupy
Cradle From Your Gloomy Grave—Those Hours Are Few.
If you live in the suburbs you devote perhaps hours of each
day to travel. Two hours per 'lay means practical!,! one-fifth of
your active life.
How many readers make any use of those two hours, and
feel each day that they have been well spent?
Instead of being wasted, those hours should be among your
best. Never mind if you are clinging to a strap because compa
nies are licensed to exploit you. Never mind if you are tired and
weary when the day is ended. The lired brain often thinks bet
ter than the fresh ohe. And man, so recently descended from the
monkey who had to think while hanging head down, ought to
have no trouble thinking as he hangs from his strap—head up.
Try this experiment: Make up your mind to devote your
hours of travel to thinking. The brain, like the muscles, needs
definite and well-planned exercise. It must be. methodical ami
regular. There is no limit to its possible results. Yoq would be
glad to spend all your traveling hours in a gymnasium on
wheels. Make of your homeward car a mental gymnasium. Each
night or morning take up some one line of thought and follow
it to its end—or as far as your mind can take you. Learn to ob
serve, to study, to reflect. Don’t look at your fellow passengers
as calves look at each other on the way to the slaughter house.
Look, as a human being, at other human beings. There
they sit or stand or hang. Some chatter, others scowl, fret,
fume, complain, brag, grin or otherwise express the strange emo
tions that move us here.
They are all ghosts, as Carlyle tells you. imprisoned for a
time in coverings of flesh, and a ear packed full of real ghosts
passing over the earth on their quick journey to the grave ought
to stir you.
The pictures that flash by your ear window should help you
to think.
The train rumbles over the switches, and in the dusk a
swinging lantern tells you that a man is at work, guiding you
safely when your work is done. Can’t you take an interest in
that human atom, representing the Power that swings our tiny
sun in space, lighting us on our journey toward the constella
tion Hercules.
%
A black steeple is outlined against the dark-blue sky of the
evening. That is a finger of stone, built by man to point ever
lastingly toward Infinite Power. It now points “upward.’’ In
twelve hours—as the earth slowly turns —it will be pointing
“downward." But there is no upward or downward in the car
pentry of the universe. In the twenty-four hours, as it turns
around with the earth, that steeple points toward all the corners
of space, and constantly it points toward Eternal Wisdom and
Justice in every corner.
This is tiresome? All right, then we’ll stop. But whether
we tire or interest you, remember:
As a man thinks, so he grows. Think, study, use all the
hours that separate your croupy cradle from your gloomy
grave. Those hours are few.
Disease Not Yet Under
Control.
Scientists have made such tremendous strides in discovering
the origin and cure of various diseases during the last quarter of a
century that the warning uttered by Dr. Simon Flexner in his re
cent address in London comes with something of a shock.
The idea that the problems of infection are almost solved, said
Dr. Flexner in his Huxley lecture at ( haring ( ross hospital. Lon
don, is erroneous. Some advance has been made, and science is still
making progress, but Dr. Flexner clearly indicates that the investi
gators have only scratched the surface. Much greater progress
must be made before infective diseases can be said to be under
control.
The marvels of recent scientific discoveries have blinded the
eye of the layman, who in his ignorance believes because the germ
of a disease is found and isolated that thereby the disease itself is in
a fairway toward being cured and controlled. Dr. Flexner points
out that this is far from the fact. - Not only are the vast majority
of infective diseases not under control but modern civic methods of
crowding human beings together without proper sanitary guards is
making the danger even more serious.
The solution of the problem, declares Flexner, is through the
tv schools of investigation such as the Rockefeller and Car
negie foundations. These laboratories with vast sums at their dis
posal and with trained specialists at work on vital problems are
bringing to the world results of inestimable value. And thus in
time science will find the means of controlling the dread ills of
human flesh.
The Atlanta Georgian
NATURE AS AN EQUILIBRIST
The Destruction of One of the Most Remarkable Feats in Balancing by Thoughtless lourists
By GARRETT P. SERVISS. **
A GREAT natural curiosity has
lately been destroyed at Tan
dll, in the province of Buenos
Ayres, Argentina. It was a bal
anced stone, celebrated under the
name of the Rock of Tandil. which
nature, in one of her freaks, had
poised exactly upon the brow of a
precl pic There it had remained
for untold centuries, the wonder of
the surrounding country, and the
pride of the inhabitants of the lo
cality. Its name, In geographical
and geological publications, had be
come famous all over the world.
I The photographs herewith show the
rock as It formerly was, and the
appearance of the place now that
the stone has tumbled into the
abyss beneath it.
This remarkable boulder of gran
ite weighed 270 tons, and although
it was poised so delicately on the
brow of the precipice that the pres
sure of the hand made it oscillate,
It is said that the Dictator Rosas
once tried in' vain to dislodge it
with the aid of the united strength
of thirty oxen.
Ice Age Trade-Mark.
It is believed that its fall was
brought about through the wearing
away of the granite brow by the
action of the dust and fragments
of bottles which visitors were'Con
tinually throwing under the stone
in order to see them ground up
when it was si t into motion. Their
thoughtless amusement has result
ed in the loss of one of the great
est curiosities of the kind tliut the
world posf-.ys.sed.
Balancing stones occur in all
countries which have been subject
ed to glacial action; that Is, where
great bodies of ice, in some former
age of ( old. have been slowly forceci
over tin face of the land, moving
down from the nearest mountains
and carrying witti them whatever
movable objects they encountered.
But there are very few cases in
which the rocks are of so great
weight, so remarkable in form and
poised in so singular a place and
manner as happened with the Rock
of Tandil. In some countries it
would have been carefully protect
ed by iaw, as is now done with nat
ural curiosities of all kinds in Ger
many, and to a large extent in Eng
land.
These strange stones are surviv
ing witnesses ot some of the most
remarkable chapters in the geo
logical history of the earth. As I
have said, they are almost invaria
bly reminders of the glacial ages.
It is customary to speak of “the
age of glaciers" as if there had been
but one. In fact, there is reason to
believe that a number of successive
glacial ages have passed over the
earth since it lias been, so far as
its general surface is concerned, in
practically its present condition.
The Causes.
Not once, but several times in
succession, the ice has advanced in
North America, driving life before
it toward the south. Many thou
sands of years have elapsed be
tween the invasions of the ice, and
genial periods have intervened dur
ing which the ice has retired, and
vegetation and animal life have re
possessed themselves of the terri
tory from which they had been
driven
There are astronomical causes
operating to bring about these enor
mous changes of climate, and they
have not censed; there will be more
glacial ages in the future. It is
known that in about ten or eleven
thousand years from now the win
ter of tiie northern hemispheres
will occur, not, as at present, wuen
the earth is at tile point in its or
bit which is nearest to tile sun, but
when it is at the opposite point,
3,000,DW) miles farther from the sun.
This in itself will suffice to cause
a decided lowering of the winter • ■
atw HE public funeral of the Duke
* of Wellington, which took
place in London sixty years
ago, was, as regards pomp and
pageantry, the most remarkable
farewell that a nation ever gave to
a “favorite son.’
It is probably true that no "hero”
in all the tide of time was ever “re
warded" as Wellington was by the
people of England. Gold was show
ered upon him without stint or
measure; honors were thrust upon
him until lie could scarcely count
them, and when he died, at the age
of eighty-three, every hair of his
snow-white head was almost sa
cred in the eves of his adoring
countrymen.
Nor is it at all difficult to find
Hie explanation of England’s pride
in and devotion to her “Iron Duke.”
It was no small thing to have
been the conqueror of Napoleon.
The mighty man who had made all
Europe tremble for twenty years,
who had played with its kings as
little hoys play with puppets, who
had seatb red the armies of tile na
tions as tlie whirlwind scatters the
dried leaves and dust, and who in
the midst of it all had seemed to be
irresistible and unconquerable—to
have brought such a man to his
knees, torn the crown from his
MONDAY, NOY EMBER 25, 1912.
*■ ■■
W • W; W* W
I W SI S
u - v fa.
The Rock of Tandil before its plunge down the declivity and the denuded
site afterward.
temperatures of the north, but it is
not all. When our winter coincides
with the aphelion of the earth—■
i. e., its greatest distance from the
sun —summer will occur at its peri
helion, or least distance from the
sun. At first glance, this would
seem to be an advantage, since the
summer then will lie hotter than at
present. But this is more than off
set by the fact that the summer
half of tlie year will be about a
week shorter than the winter half.
The reason for this is because when
the earth is nearer the sun it trav
els faster, and consequently gets
through that part of its orbit more
quickly than through the opposite
part.
The Ice Caps.
Taking' all tilings into account, it
is believed that when we have a
long, cold winter and a short
(though hot) summer, the accumu
lation of ice and snow will increase,
and, as a result, there will be a cold
period, lasting for thousands of
years in our hemisphere. Still, the
next glacial period, brought about
in this way will not be so extreme
as some of those that have oc
curred in the past.
' Geology proves that there has
Wellington’s Funeral
By REV. THOMAS E. GREGORY
’ brow and sent him. stripped of his ’
power, to die on a lone rock in the
distant seas, was a piece of work
that was well calculated to attract
attention and elicit applause.
Any nation would have been Im-
This Means You
By MORTON BIRGE.
DO your Christmas shopping,
Friend,
With the joy that you intend
Shad go with the gifts you send.
Also —do it eat ly.
Don’t put off your shopping trips
Till the final moment nips
Making haste and making slips.
Do your shopping early.
Do it while there's time to spare.
Do it easy here and there,
Buying thoughtfully, with care.
Do your shopping early.
Do not be a frantic pest.
Go in when the going's best.
Give the clerks a chance to rest *
Do your shopping early.
Heaven lias a special place
For the people, full of grace,
Who. to benefit the rate.
Do their shopping early.
’’ been at least one such period of
excessive severity, and it is this
period which is usually meant by
THE glacial age. Its existence,
too, can be accounted for by as
tronomy, for it is known that there
are other variations in the move
ment and position of the earth in
its orbit around the sun, which,
at long and somewhat irregular in
tervals, produce a period ot ex
treme cold in our hemisphere, when
perhaps a half of it is penhanently
buried by ice.
It may be added that, at the
present time, tlie Southern Hemi
sphere has a long, cold winter and
a short, hot summer, which may
possibly account for the greater
prevalence of ice in the far south
ern seas, but the effect of these
changes is less pronounced in that
part of the world because, as you
will see by glancing at a map of
the world, the southern is emphat
ically an oceanic instead of a land
hemisphere, and the ocean is
known to exercise a great effect
in equalizing temperatures. Con
sequently, it is probable the south
ern lands have never suffered as
severely as those of the north from
periodic invasions of ice.
mensely proud of the man wiio ac
complished that stupendous task.
It is true, as has been said a
thousand times and from as many
quarters, that Wellington was very
lucky. If it had not rained on the
night of the seventeenth of June,
1815; if .it had not been for the
straying away of Grouchy; if it had
not been for the timely arrival of
Blucher—Wellington would not
have figured to any great extent in
history—would not have had that
wonderful London funeral.
However, as another has well
said, This man had the good for
tune to meet with good fortune
where the greatest man in the world
was unfortunate.” Luck was on his
side, and he won.
"What vexes me most." contin
ues Heine, “is the reflection that
Arthur Wellington will be as im
mortal as Napoleon Bonaparte.
Wellington ahd Napoleon! It is a
wonderful phenomenon that the hu
man mind can at the same time
think of botli these names.”
Very tine sarcasm, but the simple
fact remains that Arthur Welling
ton was the means of putting Na
poleon out of business, thereby giv
ing Europe the blessings of peace,
and for doing that he deserved
every bit of the honor that came to
b
THE HOME PAPER
Elbert Hubbard
Writes on
Just Water
Man’s Body Is Made I p of
Seventy-Nine Per Cent Water.
The Chief Agent of Life Is the
Eternal Flow of Water.
By ELBERT HUBBARD
Copyright, 1912, by International News Service
ryxHREE-FIFTHS of the surface .
I of the earth is covered with
water. The world seems very
much better adapted to raising fish
than men, although man in his ex
istence passes through an aqueous
stage, and to a degree he never
gets out of it.
His body is made up of seventy
nine per cent water. Water is the
great source of transmission and
transportation. The circulation of
the fluids in the body feeds the
tissues. The circulation of water
means weather, climate ami all veg
etable and animal life. The flow of
one thing into another is what con
stitutes all life, and the chief agent
hi this eternal flow is water.
Water in the System.
Reduce the quantity of water in
a man’s body bjlow severity per
cent and the man dies. Increase it
over eighty-two per cent and the
man has drops), elephantiasis,
Bright’s disease, diabetes, or some
of those other cheerful things that
tlie surgeons have recently invent
ed and persented to us.
A gentleman from Kentucky, we
remember, once said. “Water Is
great stuff for bathing in.”
Water, we are told, is made up of
one part hydrogen and two parts
oxygen. But water is very- seldom
found pure. If we could get water
exactly as it is condensed from the
atmosphere In the skies, and then
liberate it by nature’s short-circuit
scheme, otherwise known as the
thunderbolt, we would have pure
water. But on the-descent of wa
ter from the skies it takes up many
impurities from the air. So we get
the rain water, which we used to
catch in a barrel at the corner of
the house, with the help of a board
under the eaves. When wejsaw a
shower coming we ran for that par
ticular board. And we all remember
how, if that barrel of rain water
was not emptied every little while,
it became full of fifty-seven million
varieties of pollywogs, bugs, and
microbes.
Working Great Changes.
In the course of time, however,
these things lived their day and
died their death, and then we had
the sweetest smelling combination
that was ever gathered in one par
ticular barrel —aber nicht!
Pure water does not decompose. ■
Democracy and Business
By CHARLES FERGUSON.
,» MAN with democracy in his
Z-X bones is sure to show it in
X his business as well as in his
politics.
“Golden Rule” Jones, who was
mayor of Toledo for several terms
—as well as being a manufacturer
of excellent oil pumps—made a
great stir in his day, just because
he had some faint inkling of the
truth that good business and real
democracy are commensurable
terms. Jones was interesting be
cause he was forever seeking new
ways of applying democracy to his
business, and was continually dis
covering that his politics were im
proved in the process.
Jones has left a lingering mem
ory of his pioneering exploits in
these untrodden ways. It was a
great thing to discover, even in
vague outline, the prodigious and
transforming truth that the princi
ples of sound business are identi
cal with those of sound politics.
However, it is the compelling
task of living men to fill in the
outline —and to realize, in detail
and in extenso. the businesslike
character of good politics.
Now, business is in its essential
nature an organization of the peo
ple to wrest the necessaries, com
forts and elegances of life from tlie
bosom of the earth. Such an or
ganization, under modern condi
tions "of high tool power and the
division of labor, is bound to be
very strong—even when it is imper
fect in its human adjustments and
unfair in its apportionment of re
wards. It is strong with the
strength of elemental forces—as
strong as chemistry and physics
and as the primal hunger and need
of man.
It is not to be wondered at. there
fore. that the business organization
in the United States has, in recent
times, shown itself to be stronger
Illgs
I
But in nature things are never
found pure. Even virtue, we are
told, is usually a. bit off color. Hon
esty is a matter of geography. Mor
ality takes a tumble when you get
tlie figures high enough. And we
are all on the greased chute for the
hell box if the Reverend Doctor
Forthley is correct in his diagnosis.
The precious metals are never
found pure. To separate the good
from the bad, the useful from the
dangerous —this is the task of mod
ern science.
By the use of electricity in smelt
ing, mountains of refuse are now
giving up their treasure of gold,
silver and copper, where before the
stuff was regarded as an incubus.
The slag from iron smelters is be
ing utilized for Portland cement.
The great packing houses make
their money from the by-products,
and the Standard Oil Company is
touching us fifteen cents a gallon
for an article which, ten years ago,
was a by-product and went a-beg
ging at two cents a gallon.
The miracles of science are work
ing great changes. Among them
all, nothing is more wonderful than
the elimination of water from rub
ber by vacuum process.
Always Going Somewhere.
Heat and water are tlie great dis
integrators. Oxygen is never at
rest, oxygen is at once the source
of life and the cause of death.
Tlie scientists tell us- that death
itself is a form of life, and that
things are destroyed in order that
new life may evolve. This is inter
esting to the theorists, but it gives
a chill to the dealers in rubber and
the manufacturers who prepare
this very useful product for the
use of the people.
Water and heat disintegrate, de
stroy and dissipate. Oxygen etern
ally eats the heart out of every
thing, even an iron bar. Oxygen is
restless, tireless, insatiable, hungry.
It utilizes water as a means of
transportation. Water is always
going somewhere —or coming bad;.
And if you think it is standing still
it is because you do not see that
is being aborted into the atmos
phere.
All vegetable matter contains a
I big percentage of water. This wa
ter is the disintegrating element
that- sends the vegetable fiber back
• • into Nature's melting pot.
• than the political organization—the
government. It is no wonder that
those who have power—legitimate
or otherwise —to control the organ
ization of business have overmas
tered the political representatives
of the people and have reduced
them to a kind of vassalage. It was
hardly to be expected that the cast
ing of votes in a box once a year
would overbalance the force of
financial usurpation—which works
perennially day and night and
which holds in its hands the cup
board, wardrobe and rooftree of
every household.
The secret of the power of busi
ness Is the hold that it maintain- 0
upon the physical realities of Hf
And the secret of the weakness fl
politics is its pitiful lack of any
such hold.
If, therefore, the political organ-
. ization of society is ever going w
dictate terms to the business or
ganization, politics must mend it*
ways. It must get down to bus -
ness. The indispensable need o
the times is a political organiza
tion that shall have an earth
hold.
An effective democratic party
capable of working out a rectifica
tion or democratization of busi
ness—would be a party with an ol
ganization in local communitie-'’
permanent as a public schoo am
perhaps centering in the eel' oo
house. It should make a man s de
mocracy in his business and
day’s work the test of his denu"' 1
cy in politics. It should offer po-iti
cal promotion to every man in I’ I ''"
portion to his private promoti<■
the public welfare in his daily 'bo.
of head and hand.
There can hardly be a question
that when a political machine sli-i
become businesslike in such ■ f ,,s ‘
ion it will put every extant politl
cal machine out of business.